PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. lo 



occupying the whole of Europe, and this fact would account for a wide diffusion 

 of ethnic and religious ideas, but it may be doubted if some of the figures, e.g., 

 those of the pottery at Hissarlik, supposed to be those of the Axe Goddess, are 

 more than accidental resemblances to the symbols of her cult. 



The tumuli were undoubtedly used for the sepulture of important persons, 

 such as kings, chiefs or leaders, and their relatives. It is not improbable that ihcy 

 may have been used in the case of certain religious rites, for in the tumulus called 

 Mane-er-H'roec, at Locmariaquer, and in Mont St. Michel, at Carnac. a large 

 number of celtas (stone axes) were found, and these have been regarded as votive 

 offerings either to the Axe Goddess, the manes of the dead, or to the Divinities of 

 death. In many of the tumuli the bones found were more or less incinerated 

 proving that cremation was practised. On the exposed surface of the greater 

 number of the slabs forming the walls of the tumulus of Gavr'inis the line-tracing 

 or sculpture is very rich, and gives a marked distinction to this tumulus. It would 

 seem to have been the tomb pf a king. 



It is in the dolmens, however, that one finds the largest number of inscrip- 

 tions. These have not been deciphered. They would appear to consist of two 

 kinds— .one ornamental, good examples of which are to be observed in the upright 

 supporting stone of the Dol des MarcJiands, the second totemic of which exam- 

 ples are to be found in the dolmen at Kerioned, in the Alee Couverte des Pierres 

 Plates, near Lbcmariaquer, and in the Alee Couverte of Lufifang. A curious fact 

 is that in the two last named there are the outlines of the same figure, which seems 

 to the writer to be that of an opened lentil pod. On one of the slabs in the Mane 

 Lud dolmen there is an inscription which is difficult to classify. It is clearly not 

 ornamental, and it is not totemic, for an almost similar one has been described 

 as found in the New Grange tumulus, near Drogheda, Ireland. Something similar 

 is to be observed on one of the vertical slabs at the end of the cavern in the Gavr'inis 

 tumulus, but here the outlines are less readily traced, owing to the surrounding 

 lines of sculpture following the curves of the inscription. It may be hierograni- 

 niatic in function. 



Of what race were the dolmen builders ? The definite answer to this question 

 would determine also who were the founders of the menhirs and of the tumuli, 

 for it is generally conceded that the three classes of monuments may have, in Brit- 

 tany at least, been built by the same tribe or race. Though first looked upon as 

 of Celtic origin, it is now recognized that they are the remains of a race which 

 imhabited the western and north-western part of Europe before the advent of the 

 Celts. This race, known as Iberian, also occupied Ireland, Wales, and the western 

 portions of England and Scotland, and thus the distribution of dolmens and other 

 megaHthic remains would be accounted for. There are, however, difficulties in 

 accepting this view. The dolmen-builders were mesaticephalic, the Iberians doliclio- 

 cephalic. The Iberians who inhabited the Dordogne district and the portion of 

 the Landes district. incJuding Dax and its neighbourhood, from Pal.'uolithic times, 

 did not build dolmens, and in all the country lying between the Garonne and the 

 Pyrenees, inhabited in C:esar's day by the Aquitani. a tribe of the Iberians, then- 

 are very few megalithic remains. 



The explanation of these difficulties can only be conjectural. According to 

 Collignon'!) the Iberians were not a race, but an assemblage or collection of tribes, 

 derived from three races which inhabited from the earliest times the Spanish penin- 

 sula These were the Neanderthaloids of Gibraltar, a people like the Cro-Magnon 

 race and the type called by de Quatrefages the race of Mugem. whose remains are 

 to be found in kitchen middings. on the banks of the Tagus. Accepting this 

 view, it would be possible to regard the Aquitani as a less mixed race descended 



(I) Les Basques. Memoires de la Societe d'Anthropologie, 3d Serie, Tome i, Fascicule 4, page 55. 



